Bad Religion is celebrating their 40th anniversary tour with Alkaline Trio and War on Women, after having to postpone last year because… well you know. The second night of their 30 date tour brought them out to Vegas Saturday night at the Brooklyn Bowl.
Just getting to Brooklyn Bowl on a Saturday proved to be its own feat. While parking on the strip remains a nightmare, I counted 14 Bad Religion t-shirts as I walked to the venue from my secret parking spot, and saw several people sporting new Rancid and Dropkick Murphy shirts from the show the night before. Staff were diligently checking vax cards (and negative covid tests), which hopefully makes everyone feel safer because once inside, fans were shoulder to shoulder.
It’s been awhile since I’ve been at a show that packed, but I suppose being around for four decades warrants the attention. You know that Bad Religion is a band that everyone is gonna go hard for the whole time. The band took us all the way back to 1982 with “Damned to be Free” off their first studio album How Could Hell Be Any Worse? And slingshotted us to 2019 with “Chaos From Within” off their latest album. Playing all the hits, fans screamed along to “Sorrow” and “21st Century (Digital Boy)”. If you skipped the show, because you’ve seen Bad Religion a million times, you missed out because Greg Graffin sang a song they’ve never done on tour before, “Better off Dead” from Stranger Than Fiction.
I’m not gonna lie to you, the last time I saw Alkaline Trio I was stupid in love, getting drunk at happy hour before the show, and joking about Matt Skiba’s hat being cursed. So… it felt weird to be back in the same venue, with the same band and not have Emily next to me, screaming the words to every single fucking song at the top of her lungs. Also, Skiba –NO Hat! Whatev, the Chicago three piece opened with “Private Eye”, just like they always do, and if you closed your eyes and let the crowd swallow you up for three minutes and thirty seconds you could pretend it was 2018 and not 2021. ALK3 are another band that’s been around forever, so fans packed in even tighter to sing along with “Clavicle”, “Armageddon”, and “Mercy Me”. Closing with their standard “Radio” has never hit me so hard. This song always gets the biggest crowd reaction. I cried. Because Em, “I’ve got a big fat fuckin’ bone to pick with you my darling”. Fuck, it gets better, right?
While some bands might be intimidated to play with veterans like BR and ALK3, Baltimore’s feminist hardcore-punk band War on Women opened the night strong to an already packed audience with fans still filling in. Frontwoman Shawna Potter, is the kind of person you follow into battle. With confrontational songs about rape culture, street harassment, the gender wage gap, transphobia, and every other social issue you can think of, Potter makes you want to “raise some hell” and “make this world worth living in”. Throughout the set she repeatedly screamed, “fuck white male entitlement” and encouraged fans to make room for marginalized people and to let them take up space.
-Kristy Calhoun
Photos by Aaron Mattern
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